Thursday, January 30, 2014

This year I donated a piece of my art to the Fiber 5K Run For Cancer.Anyone anywhere in this whole country could have won this piece. Imagine my surprise when my friend Peggy who lives in the same community I do was the winner of it.Peggy was the very first quilter I met here and I consider myself lucky to call her a friend.I am so happy she won this.In case you haven’t heard, we raised over $5000 in 7 hours this year for the American Cancer Society. This is an addition to the $250,000 we have already raised through our various fiber fund raisers. It is one of my favorite charities that I support.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

I have often heard people say that the shelf life of dye powders are about 6 months. I have used dye that was as old as 30 years and have only had weak results with one or two jars of dye, and they were the 30 plus year old ones.
A friend gave me a lot of old Procion dyes she got from another friend.
She tested one on cotton and it didn’t work, but we were quite sure they would work on silk.
I had a lot of silk to dye so I was happy to have them.
We had no idea how old they were or what type of conditions they had been kept in.

The first thing I did was to contact Carol Soderlund and ask her the easiest way to test the dyes on cotton to see if they would work for it too. Carol shared her easy method with me and she is sharing it on her post today.

Some of the dyes I was given were pure dyes but most were mixed dyes.
These photos shows all the results – both pure and mixed.
I was not concerned about using them in formulas where an exact color match was desired.
I had no samples from the past of these dyes to compare them to as most were mixed colors I had never used.
I do a lot of Shibori dyeing and “by the seat of your pants” dyeing.
I had great results with the first batch I tried.
My samples are not evenly dyed as I left them alone overnight and did not stir. This was perfectly fine for my intended uses as I just wanted to know if the dyes would work.
The great results continues with almost every one.
The last one, Strong Orange, was a complete bust……and it was the one and only one my friend had tested.
This is what Strong Orange should look like. These are pieces of cotton fabric and silk scarves I dyed with my own strong orange dye last year. The dye was about 20 years old.
I accidentally used 10 times as much dye powder as I should have on this one. I have a feeling if I had used the correct amount it would have been far too pale.
Why did most of them work, yet the last two were less than successful?
I can only guess. They ones that didn’t work well could have been kept in a different place. They could have come from a suppliers batch that had a problem. I don’t know what else could have made the difference, but maybe someone else can offer an explanation.
When I want to do dyeing of exact colors as I learned from Carol I will test my older pure dyes and if they don’t match my original samples I’ll order fresh dye.
But for much of the work I do, I will be using these dyes and thanking my friends who thought to pass them on.
In conclusion I’d like to suggest that if you have old dyes try Carol’s method of testing and you may be pleasantly surprised at the results.
If they don’t work on cotton, you may want to use them as an acid dye on silk.
AND, don’t listen to anyone who tells you the shelf life of these dyes is 6 months, or any other amount of time!
TEST them yourself and you could save a lot of money as well as prevent throwing away something that still has a useful life.
Post number 1313

I posted this group of fabrics a few days ago, along with some others. These are the ones I chose to work with.
I have been envisioning doing something with this group for months and it finally happened.
I spent about 3 days piecing this.
It is the type of thing I can do only so much with and then find it necessary to walk away and come back another day with new eyes.
Like most things I create with my hand dyed fabric I was working with a limited amount of each fabric.
I’m pleased with it and will start quilting it later today.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

If I am not mistaken my granddaughters that I called the “Glamour Girls” decided to each make a quilt and use some of the same fabrics.

They picked fabrics, cut squares and that’s as far as they got. That was at least 10 years ago!

I have a feeling that this is not all of them. I expect to find more of them somewhere!

I fused all of these to Wonder Under and they will be the some of the seeds friends can use to create a fused work of art.

This picture shows the two of them in Eagle River when the family used to vacation there. I would guess they were about 7 years old. We did stamping on T shirts as a rainy day project that year and they made their T shirts as similar as possible.

In this picture, taken in my studio, they are much younger. When the family was together you could always find the two of them doing something together.

They used to write stories with pen names and create the characters which were usually young women who had interesting lives.

I don’t think I have any of those to share anymore and they are probably happy I don’t!

Saturday, January 18, 2014

When I am done piecing a project and have little pieces of fabric that are too small to do piecing with this is what I do.

I place them on a sheet of Wonder Under. I cover it with a sheet of the Wonder Under release paper I have left from another project so the exposed parts of the Wonder Under don’t stick to my iron. Then I fuse them with my iron.

And what do I do with these small pieces? I do cut them out so there is no WU hanging off the edges.

I may make a fused composition myself, but for the most part I stockpile them for friends to make a composition when they visit me. House guests have done some great pieces, as have students in classes I have taught. My stockpile is low right now so it is a good time to make more components for friends to use.

I also will be fusing some larger pieces so others can cut shapes they desire to use.

I have a stock of bases made up for others to work on.

It’s always fun to see the designs people come up with, especially the ones who don’t think they are creative.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Mark your calendar for January 15, 2014 and join me as I run the Fiber 5K to Fight Cancer. OK, I won't actually be jogging around a race course. But I will be joining the fun as Fiberart For A Cause's virtual race kicks off with a goal of donating $5000 directly to the American Cancer Society.Generous Prize Sponsors for drawings means there will be many winners at the 1K ($1000) mark, 2K ($2000) mark, etc., plus a Grand Prize drawing when we cross the Finish Line.

According to Race Director, Virginia Spiegel, "Fiberart For A Cause likes to have fun while raising money to fight cancer, so, of course, there are going to be more "race" details revealed as January 15 draws closer. 100% of donations are given directly to the American Cancer Society through Fiberart For A Cause. Fiberart For A Cause has already donated more than $230,000 to the American Cancer Society thanks to the generosity of fiber artists and patrons."

I don’t think there is anyone who has not been affected by this disease.

I have supported this since the first post card fund raiser and it seems each and every time we raise funds someone else I know is fighting the fight.

I know we are making progress against this disease as I just received a message from a young man tonight who has been fighting the fight for over 3 years and although he has been through a lot of challenges I expect him to win the fight and kick Cancer’s butt.

I’ve been the “Official Cheerleader” to make and surpass our goals and I hope we kick it up and notch and raise far more than our 5K goal!

This year I am donating an 8 1/2” x 11” piece of my Fiber Art. I hope YOU are the winner.

There are some great prizes this year, more than ever before. There will be prize drawings when we reach $1000 and for each subsequent $1,000 and also a grand prize drawing when we reach our goal of $5000.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

You are welcome to join me as I participate in this race that benefits one of my favorite charities, The American Cancer Society.
Fiber Art For A Cause has raised over $230,000 dollars with our previous projects and with your help we hope to add at least another $5000 to that total.
No running shoes required!
With each donation of $20 or more you have a chance to win some great prizes. This year we have more prizes than every before and you could be a winner of a prize, or the Grand Prize!
I am donating this piece of my art I and one lucky “runner” will win it.
I hope you will join me "on the track" on January 15.
Stay tuned for more information on how to participate along with a list of the prizes you could win.

Friday, January 3, 2014

I listed a lot of patterns, books, etc on eBay last week and figured that would be it until summer. I sold a lot but I still have a lot available.

I realized that people are looking for patterns for warm clothing with the temperatures we’ve been having.

I decided the easiest way to get those patterns to those who want to sew for the cold weather is to list things with a Buy It Now and a 3 day listing period so they can buy the without waiting a week to see if their bid won.

Although I just started doing this a couple hours ago, things are already selling and they will be shipped ASAP.

I just realized I still had time to list more Kwik Sew patterns on eBay today. They are all brand new and are the ones printed on the heavy paper. I am concentrating on listing patterns for cold weather....patterns for Polar Fleece, robes, ...pajamas, etc. I'm also listing Donner Designs ski wear patterns, some Erickson patterns and some others. All the listings are Buy It Now so you don't have to wait a week to see if your bid was the high bid. The listing period is ONLY 3 DAYS so don't wait or someone else will buy them of they'll be gone after 3 days. There are patterns for men, women and children. You can find them at:http://www.ebay.com/sch/queenoffabric/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

The pictures of the patterns I’ve posted were all available at the time I posted this to my blog.